Twenty Minute Workout Testimonial

Kim’s Twenty-Minute Workout

I love this!! This is a great prescription for many of us who couldn’t seem to find practice time. One might think he/she needs at least an hour, but then if that magical hour fails to present itself in the course of the day, the flute ends up sitting in the closet!

Long Tones

This has long been a staple of my modern flute practicing, and I’ve had to make it part of my baroque flute practicing since that instrument is a completely different beast (an elaboration on my struggles with this will be the subject of a future blog entry). I’ve picked up several ways of practicing long tones over the years; I play a different exercise at each practice session. Each day at Boot Camp starts out with a “note of the day” session---there’s one long-tone exercise right there! Kim has us play/sustain/tune/focus/beautify the note du jour in all the playable registers of the instrument, then we go on to build triads over that note. It wakes up one’s “abs” and really gets the support going. Who needs Pilates core training when one can get it at BFVdGBC?!? We’ve also gotten other long tone exercises from all three of our instructors (Kim, Janet and Ingrid), and I can post those upon readers’ requests.

Technique

Every teacher I've studied with insists on including the following in every practice session: scales, arpeggios, articulation. Aaaarrrrggghhhh!! It sounds like a lot of work, but there must be a way to include all this in that twenty-minute workout. If time won’t allow us to practice every scale and arpeggio every day, then how about if we just focus on the scale(s) and arpeggio(s) that are in the piece we’re working on at the moment? There’s the main key and one or two others that it might modulate to; not too bad. The articulation practice is built in to the scale/arpeggio/technical passage work. This topic alone could take up many MB’s of space. (Kim----please consider this a request for you to post your words of wisdom on this.) It is something I’m working on a lot this year, and I am open to anything anyone has to offer on the subject. Here’s a cool exercise I recently got from early winds player Adam Gilbert. Its objective is to keep the air stream constant and not let it be too obstructed by the motions of the tongue. Turn your head joint so that the finger holes are not lined up with the embouchure hole. Hold up the instrument with the hands in playing position (not on the finger holes since they are now facing the wrong way), and practice your technical passage with the articulation AND the fingering motions. The articulation is being practiced on that single tone, but at the same time, you’re still working on coordinating that with the fingers. After practicing this a few times, turn the instrument back to its normal setting and play the same passage. Did it make a difference?

Happy practicing!! --Asuncion

The 20-Minute Workout

20 Minute Practice Regime for Recorder and Transverse Flute Players

1) 5 minutes: Long tones (About 10 seconds per note)
Start on a mid-range note, go up an octave, then return to the beginning note and go down to your lowest note, chromatically.

2) 3 minutes: Trills for each finger
RH little finger
LH thumb (recorders only)
LH ring finger
RH ring finger
LH middle finger
RH middle finger
LH index finger
RH index finger

3) 2 minutes: Specific trills
Flutes
bb'-c''
bb'-a'
a-g# in both octaves

Recorders:
C recorders
e''-d''
bb'-ab'
c'-bb'

F recorders
a''-g''
f''-eb''
eb''-db''

4) 5 minutes
Play through your piece(s)/movement at tempo a couple of times, identify technical (fingering) issues.

5) 5 minutes
From the technical issues identified above, adress one (1) of them. If you do one per session, they will soon disappear. Practice relevant passages with metronome, SLOWLY, forwards and backwards. When you can play the passage in a relaxed manner and correct notes 3 times in succession, then move to playing it at tempo. When the current relevant passage is played at tempo and without any body tension in the process, and each note is correct 90% of the time, the issue may be considered resolved. You may now move to the next technical issue. If one issue doesn't disappear in one day, go on to the next one and come back to the first one when you've addressed all of the other issues. This will keep your practice from becoming stale and also give you something to which you may look forward.

ADDENDUM (posted 14 July 2008)
This now becomes the 25-Minute Workout.
6) 5 Minutes
Chromatic scales. Slurred. Flutes and f-recorders, begin on the note a' or d", go up and back one (1) octave chromatically. Move up 1/2 tone and do the same thing until your starting note is a perfect fourth above your first note (e.g., flutes, start on a', start last scale up on d"). Do this entire exercise SLOWLY, until you can play the whole scale evenly. Then you may increase your speed. This exercise, believe it or not, actually has a goal: to be able to play the chromatic scale both very slow and very fast.

Then, begin on the note 1/2 tone below your first note (e.g., flutes, start on g#'), go up and back chromatically as above, then continue in a sequence down until you reach your bottom note.

Recorders: you are now done with the chromatic scale practice. Take a big breath.

Flutes, grab one ear plug. Put it in your RIGHT ear. You'll see why in a moment.
Start on d''', and go up and back chromatically to your a''' (if your flute plays Bb''', then go there). Do this SLOWLY for the first few times you practice this exercise, then in ADDITION to playing it slowly, begin to increase your speed.